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Wallace Ruzvidzo Herald Reporter
Work on major roads that in and around Harare is progressing well, with completion set for next month and testing of the roads set for July, Local Government and Public Works Minister, Daniel Garwe, has said.
Minister Garwe yesterday toured a number of projects being undertaken in Harare following his assumption of duties in the ministry recently.
First, he visited the new Manyame Hospital, then the Zim Cyber City and the new Parliament Building.
In an interview after the tour, he expressed satisfaction with the progress made so far.
“I am taking a tour of the projects that have been constructed under the Department of Public Works in our ministry and also our local authorities and everything that is under the purview of the Minister of Local Government and Public Works.
“I could be happier (but I cannot) because there is slow progress in certain areas.
“But they will be able to continue to catch up and then, particularly those that are SADC Summit related, and maybe that they will be able to finish the works by the 30th of June so that we leave all of July to testing systems and showing them their workability and improving work.”
Among the projects he visited was the site for the Cyber City in Mt Hampden, where he said a roundtable with stakeholders which would centre on working out the way forward was on the cards.
He said the project was a long-term investment with lots of modalities to be worked out.
“They are working properly. This one is a long-term project. It’s not a once-off. It’s a city on its own with a lot of issues that need to be considered. One of them is revisiting some of our legislation to ensure that we accommodate the adoption and implementation of new technologies.
“We have to face our by-laws; we have agreed in principle what we now need to do to ensure that the paperwork is out for them to have the comfort of making a document,” he said.
Minister Garwe said Government was committed to seeing the project taking shape and sticking to set timelines.
“The other issue is the sweeteners that are the basket of sweeteners that the Minister of Finance put in place for them and they want to see whether those can be operationalised.
“There are a number of innovations that they are talking about which we also need to sit down on, which I cannot discuss now. They make a lot of sense from an investment perspective.
“We have agreed that next week we will have a roundtable meeting,” he said.
Construction of Manyame Hospital, added Minister Garwe, was also on course to be completed by June.
“We were impressed with the progress that is taking place there (at the Zim Cyber City). We passed through the (new) Parliament Building where there is serious landscaping and it was being done,” he said.
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